


Perspective

by random_chick



Category: In Time (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_chick/pseuds/random_chick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whoever said time heals all wounds, they lied. It's love that heals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lodessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/gifts).



Not a day goes by that Will doesn’t think of his mother, doesn’t miss her with a fierce ache that’s almost physical. Rachel was such a part of his life -- had been and still was. Just because she’s gone doesn’t mean she doesn’t influence him even now.

The thing that hurts the most, he decides as he slams down yet another shot in the privacy of a nondescript motel room, is that he could have saved her. If he’d been just a little faster, only a few seconds sooner, he would have been able to give her some of his time and she wouldn’t have had to die in the middle of a lonely street at night.

He looks to the bottle of alcohol, some random alcohol Sylvia likes but that he can’t ordinarily stand the taste of, and sees that it’s empty. Strange, he muses. It’d been half full only an hour earlier.

Though it doesn’t _really_ surprise him that the bottle is now empty. Bottles always seem to empty quicker when he’s thinking of his mother. He supposes it’s an attempt to dull the pain as quickly as possible, but it never works. In fact, it only makes the pain even worse.

“Will, what are you doing?”

He looks up, head heavy as he looks at Sylvia. Her hair is dyed red this month, in an attempt to be less obvious and less flirty than her usual personality. Except he knows it’ll never work, that Sylvia and her subtle -- and not so subtle charms -- can never be hidden, not under anything.

“Drinking,” he says, in a masterful understatement of the obvious. “A lot of drinking.”

“I can tell _that_ ,” she says dryly, shutting the door behind her and moving to sit next to him on the bed. “Your mother again? Or is it something else?”

Rachel’s death and his myriad issues about it are the only reason he drinks, really, but she doesn’t want to flat-out assume. They haven’t been together long enough for that, and in any case, she cares too much to put him on the spot like that. Even if she _did_ just sort of do it anyway, she still at least gave him an out.

“My mother,” he said, nodding slightly and feeling rather pleased with himself for not wincing at how stupid the action was. “I ever tell you how she died?” He’s so drunk now that he can’t remember if he has or not.

All Sylvia says is, “Talk to me,” as she wraps an arm around him.

“We never had much time to spare,” Will says, leaning against her. “We survived, yeah, but it was always -- _always_ \-- day to day. And still, she insisted one day on giving me some time. Enough that I could have a decent lunch, she said. And that’s why she died.”

Sylvia says nothing, knowing Will needs to let the words come as they will, however they will.

“She died because of me,” Will says, an odd hitch in his voice that’s not quite tears, not yet, though the tears will come. “Because she gave me that time, she didn’t have enough for the bus and had to run home.”

Sylvia runs a hand over Will’s hair, kissing his temple and feeling the suppressed shudder that means he’s holding back tears. He needs to let those tears out if he’s ever going to start processing, she thinks. But she’ll never make them come out, they have to come in their own good time.

Time. Even now, after everything they’ve done, time is so important to them. Everything they do revolves around it, involves it in some way. Now is no different.

“I know I _shouldn’t_ blame myself,” Will says, his voice more that of a lost little boy than a man the age he is. “But I do. If she hadn’t given me that time, if she hadn’t been trying to look out for me even though she didn’t need to, she would’ve been fine. She’d have been able to afford the damn bus and she’d have been _fine_. But she couldn’t and she wasn’t and now she’s dead and I don’t have her anymore!” His voice rises sharply throughout it until he’s not quite yelling but definitely isn’t speaking with a normal volume or tone.

“Will, listen to me,” Sylvia says and her voice is gentle, soothing. “Your mother did what she did out of love, out of concern. And it’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s the system’s, the way we’re all so dependent on time. It’s not just a way of marking off events anymore, it’s a currency. And it’s not just a currency anymore, it’s a _need_. I was fortunate, in many ways. I never had to worry about time. And that means that now that I’m in this situation with you, I understand and appreciate how other people treasured their time before us. They wouldn’t have given it up for just anything. So your mother giving you that time, she did it because _you_ were the most important thing in the world to her, beyond even her own life.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty, though,” Will says, but his voice sounds a little more normal now and Sylvia lets out a silent sigh of relief. The crisis may be over, she thinks.

“I know,” she says. “But it means that you can move on. Well, not entirely, but you can work at it. And the best part? You don’t have to do it alone.”

Will lifts his head at that, smiles tearfully at her. And she smiles back at that.

“You’re a godsend, you know that?” Will murmurs as he kisses her.

“Will, you’re still drunk!” she protests, laughing softly.

“Not so drunk I can’t spend time with a beautiful woman,” he says, kissing her again.

Sylvia laughs and lets him push her down onto the bed. He hasn’t gotten over it all, or even close to all, she knows. But he’s better than he was when she walked back into the room and she’ll take that for now.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds, it just gives some people perspective.


End file.
